HOUSING RECOVERY IN JEOPARDY? Existing Home Sales TANK, Falling 2.6%

Existing home sales fell to 4.48 million, a drop of 2.6 percent from February.

February numbers were revised slightly higher to 4.60 million, but that still doesn't make up for such a major miss.

ORIGINAL: The National Association of Realtors will publish existing home sales data for March at 10 AM ET.

Analysts polled by Bloomberg are looking for an increase in the number of sales from 4.59 million in February to 4.61 million in March. That corresponds with an increase of 0.5 percent on a month-over-month basis.

Sluggish housing sector growth has been a sore point in the recovery so far, despite the fact that economists and industry professionals have recently been saying that we've passed the bottom on home prices.

A poor datapoint here would indicate that the housing recovery continues to be bumpy, and that analysts might be wise to scale back optimistic expectations.